Evil Dead horror image bypasses console family settings.

Microsoft is investigating how an advert for the Evil Dead movie appeared on the dashboard of an Xbox 360 user after the console's family settings had been activated.

Two Xbox 360 users took to Reddit to complain about the inappropriate ad, which shows a 'creepy' image of the film's possessed protagonist Mia reaching out of a trap door, with one saying that it had caused their 3 year old daughter to become too "terrified to turn [the] Xbox on".

"3 year old daughter terrified to turn Xbox on," said the complainant. "Family settings are on. Why does this add still appear?" Another user added, "5 year old nephew wanted to play Forza. He ran screaming from the room when the dashboard loaded... "

Xbox LIVE's director of programming Larry Hyrb later apologised for the incident, saying that he's "asked the ad team to look into this".

"Sorry about your daughter being scared," he said. "That's not cool at all."

He later added: "The team is working on swapping this image out, and investigating why Family Settings did not catch it."

Microsoft's Family Settings offer controls to parents to help protect their child's safety and privacy and - when it works - restrict inappropriate content from being seen by minors, including marketing content from Xbox and its partners.